Snapper Trip Offshore

 I was invited to fish offshore this past Friday, and with my engine still not ready to go, I took the opportunity and fished the day with friends and neighbors, Brian Parent, his sons Mark and David, and Andy Melville. We left the dock downtown Jacksonville early and ran the river out, passing Mayport and thru the jetties then headed another 25 miles east. Brian had already warned us that although we had a beautiful day ahead of us, there were some predicted swells of 4-6', which would make for a rough ride. It was. 

But Brian had some "secret" numbers, handed off from his son Mark, who had sweet talked a lady friend whose dad who had some numbers,  and he scored a good spot! 

The bottom was down about 70' and it was active when Brian set his Rodan trolling motor to anchor. I was a newbie to this and didn't have a clue what needed to be done but Andy and Brian were old hands at it. They quickly cut up some purchased squid and we began to drop the bait on a 1/0 hook to the bottom and wait for a "tap". It took a while to get the hang of it but we were able to eventually catch some fresh and lively Grunts to use for Snapper bait.

Brian had some heavy spinning and bait casting reels set up with 50-65lb braided line with a swivel in between and then a 6' 80lb fluorocarbon leader and 6/0 circle hook. The Grunts were the bait of choice but we did use some cut-bait on occasion.

We hadn't been fishing for long before Mark had a strong hookup and boy was it a big fish. He fought it for a while then handed it off to his dad who finished it off, eventually cranking up a huge 35" Red Snapper! What a great way to start off a trip! I picked up a keeper sized Triggerfish, then all of us were getting bites. Andy stayed busy as "first mate", bating hooks, de-hooking fish, re-rigging rods, and in between, catching Grunts.

As the morning wore on it was evident that the youngest angler on the boat had the "hot rod". David caught and landed two really nice sized Red Snapper, a couple of smaller ones, and a shark. Mark added another Red Snapper, I battled a big Shark, then Andy put the final big Snapper in the boat. Brian wrapped things up with another huge Shark catch. 

We had a long ride back, not so bumpy this time, but when we got back closer to shore there was a massive thunderstorm hanging right over the inlet, so we hung out for about 30 minutes and let it dissipate. As we cruised down the river, heading back to town, we counted it as another great day to be fishing here in north Florida.